Pediatric Automotive Restraints, Pediatricians, and the Academy
Taken as a whole, the study pediatricians covered the range from recent graduates to those in practice over 30 years and included adequate representation of solo practitioners (30.8%) and members of groups (50.6%) and prepaid health plans (10.8%). Over one half of respondents estimated that their patients come from families earning between $10,000 and $15,000 per year. The vast majority (>90%) of pediatricians surveyed said that less than 25% of their patients requested information about pediatric automotive safety devices.
Pediatricians who estimated they were teaching about this subject on every visit made up 2.6% of the entire sample (Table II). An additional 59.5% did so at least once each year per family. For 11.4% this aspect of health education was difference is consistent with the findings presented in Table IV, the respondents' ranked order of effective methods of distributing pediatric information. There were no significant differences between the rankings by the mail group and the interview group so the results are combined. In general, special letters from the Academy were felt to be most effective and visits by a pharmaceutical representative least effective as a source of pediatric information to Academy members.
There were no differences between mail and interview groups with regard to the pamphlet follow-up questions. Overall, 94% found the pamphlets informative and 73% showed them to their patients; 89% would use them if provided free but only 36% would do so if there was a charge. The relative unwillingness to purchase the pamphlets correlates with the low percentage (2%) of pediatricians who ordered them in response to a mailing to all Academy members in June 1974.9
